After a fall of about 20% between June and July, US long products imports increased 22% from 166,000 short tons in July to 204,000 tons in August. In comparison, August long products imports in 2011 were 190,000 tons, in 2010 249,000 tons, in 2009 125,000 tons, in 2008 232,000 tons, and in 2007 347,000 tons.
An increase in rebar imports accounted for 60% of the overall rise between July and August and was due to higher imports from Mexico. Beams imports also increased significantly but from a combination of countries including Russia, Japan, Korea and Luxembourg. The only product category which showed lower imports was wire rod.
September long products licenses reported up to September 18th were 156,000 tons, which is likely to mean that full-month September imports will be much higher than August’s.
Based on reported import licenses and as compared to preliminary July census data, US flat products imports dropped 12% from 735,000 short tons to 649,000 tons in August. August flat products imports in 2011 were 639,000 tons, in 2010 468,000 tons, and in 2009 353,000 tons.
A decline in hot rolled imports drove the overall drop, where imports from Korea, Australia and Japan showed the largest declines. This was somewhat counteracted by an increase in cut plate imports, where volumes rose by almost 40% compared to July from countries such as Brazil, Turkey, Korea, and Romania.
I will update the spreadsheet below after licenses are updated on Tuesday, September 18th in order to show mid-September license data.
China crude steel production was 61.7 million metric tonnes in July, 4.0% higher than in the same month last year and a monthly production record. Year-to-date Chinese crude production was 417.9 million tonnes, 1.4% higher than year-to-July 2011 output.
Comparing consecutive month, July’s production was 1.5 million tonnes higher than June’s, but the average daily production rate in July was 1% lower due to the longer July month. In addition, China’s net exports in July were 3.16 million tonnes, almost 1 million tonnes lower than net exports in June.
Worldsteel published July’s global crude steel production on August 21st. World crude production was 129.7 million tonnes, 1.8% higher than in July 2011 for the 62 countries reporting. But the theme of continuing global drift is maintained. Average daily production declined by 1.6% between June and July.
China’s production rose from 60.2 million tonnes in June to 61.7 million tonnes in July, but that was a decrease in average daily production of 0.8%. Other countries that showed month-to-month increases of about 200K tonnes or more include Brazil, India, Turkey and the US. Counteracting that growth was Europe. Spain, Sweden and Germany each dropped production by about 200k tonnes or more.
As usual, all the data for July 2012 (and for a number of prior years) is generously shared in the Nerds spreadsheet below.
Based on reported import licenses and after a significant fall last month, US long products imports dropped 20% from 216,000 short tons in June to 172,000 tons in July. In comparison, July long products imports in 2011 were 180,000 tons, in 2010 232,000 tons, in 2009 104,000 tons, in 2008 270,000 tons, and in 2007 563,000 tons.
A drop in rebar and wire rod imports drove the overall decline. Rebar accounted for about 60% of the drop between June and July and was due to lower volumes from Turkey and Mexico.
I will update the spreadsheet below to provide mid-August license figures when the licenses are updated next week.
Based on reported import licenses, US flat products imports rose 14% from 708,000 short tons in June to 810,000 tons in July. In comparison, July flat products imports in 2011 were 830,000 tons, in 2010 600,000 tons, and in 2009 291,000 tons.
An increase in hot roll and hot dip galvanized imports drove the overall rise. Hot roll imports increased by about 87,000 tons due to higher imports from countries such as Korea, Australia and the Netherlands. Hot dip imports rose by about 22,000 tons, with significant increases from India and Italy.
I will update the spreadsheet below when licenses are updated next week in order to show mid-August imports license data.
